NBCU, Comcast Offering ‘First-of-Kind’ Ad Tool

NEW YORK – NBCUniversal and Comcast are offering an ad tool that will let advertisers match consumer and third-party data for their national buys with data coming from 20 million anonymized Comcast subscriber homes for national TV inventory.

Called NBCU+ Powered by Comcast, the product gives advertisers the ability to target “addressable” ads in Comcast homes across its video-on-demand inventory – a first for any TV programmer – from national inventory in NBCUniversal’s networks.

Linda Yaccarino, president of advertising sales of NBCUniversal, gave an example: A deal could involve a luxury carmaker targeting national audiences across NBCUniversal’s networks in geographic zones with a high percentage of previous luxury vehicle owners.

Yaccarino has called the offering “a sophisticated contextualize media planning tool” that makes for “better decision-making on the front end; my national buy that everyone gets to see is going to be more optimized. In the Comcast VOD space, that’s where it’s almost like the cherry on top – where we are able to deliver the actual addressable ad to the consumers in that footprint.”

She adds, “It’s another invitation to invest more in NBCUniversal because it will better inform down the line and change the conversation. It’s not about spots and dots, and goes way beyond a 30-second spot. We are here to help clients move inventory.”

Andrew Ward, group vice president for Comcast Media 360, told MediaPost News: “It’s important to recognize this is not set-top box data. It’s coming off our servers.”